Challenge Stu

Woohoo, finally! Yesterday Ian Symington and I crossed the line at the same time at the Hardmoors 60, my first win in an ultra. The race is a sixty mile race along the second half of the Cleveland Way, from Guisborough to Filey. We stayed at Mum and Dad's the night before, and they came out on the day with Lorna and Dolly the dog - it was great to have some support along the course! Mum and Dad also took loads of photos, so I'll keep this short and include plenty of them...  The start was delayed from 8 until half past (as most competitors were still in the toilet queue at 8 o'clock), but we were soon underway on the first section, from the Sea Cadets up into Guisborough Woods, then along through the woods to Slapewath then Skelton, and finally to Saltburn where we joined the coast, which we would follow for the rest of the day. The weather was perfect, not too hot but bright and sunny. I was running in about third place, behind two guys who I didn't know, but I k...

As regular visitors (do I have any?!) might notice, things are changing around here... I've started updating my Big Alps Run website and blog to become a general website for all my future challenges! I couldn't quite bear to buy my name as a website, so I've gone for "Challenge Stu". This blog, my JustGiving page and my website have all now changed over to this, and I'm working through the site to bring it up to date. Let me know what you think of the changes! www.challengestu.com www.challengestu.blogspot.co.uk www.justgiving.com/challengestu www.twitter.com/mrstuartwalker

OK, first of all let's clarify - it's called the 101010 because the first race was on 10th October 2010. The race was such a success it's been carried on and is now in it's third year, taking place this year on 23rd September 2012. On Friday night we had a few friends round for sausages and a few beers (which became a whiskey tasting session). During the course of the evening some of them talked about a 10k they were doing on Sunday, and with no races this weekend I wondered about an entry on the day. I didn't decide till after my run on Saturday so there wasn't much tapering involved, but come Sunday morning I was on the startline in Endcliffe Park... Photo from Accelerate I started in the "sub 40" pen, which happened to be the front one. I wasn't sure of the other guys there so waited just behind the front. We started and I immediately regretted the whole idea, we were climbing a gentle-ish grass bank, the two leaders shot off... I hung w...